Brief Flames
by Northlight
Summary: Unrelated drabbles written for the WHR drabble community on livejournal.
1. No last chaces

**Title:** No last chances  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating:** PG  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Kate  
**Word count:** 123  
**Warnings:** none.  
**Summary:** Kate is tempted.

* * *

They think that Kate is tempted by her power, willingly corrupted.

Kate is tempted by simpler things: the desire to close her eyes to the truth, and pretend that everything is fine, and normal, and safe. She wants to forget the way Zaizen makes her skin crawl, and how Amon's eyes are dark and cold when he looks at her. She is tempted to put her fears down to her overactive imagination, laugh off the idea of danger, and continue to play at being normal.

She's not normal, and nothing is right, not anymore.

They think that Kate is tempted by her power, and that's only part of the truth. She can resist one temptation for another, if they give her the chance.

**--end**


	2. Sinful

**Title:** Sinful  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating:** PG13  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Robin/Amon  
**Word count:** 106  
**Warnings:** none.  
**Summary:** Robin wants.

* * *

Amon sleeps, exhausted.

Robin sits perched at the edge of his bed, hands curled in on themselves, tight. She is tempted to reach out and smooth her hand across his forehead, trace her fingertip down his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, the line of his jaw. She wants to feel his pulse, wants to run her hands down the fabric of his shirt and feel the solid muscle of his chest.

She wants to lean over him, hands cupped around his face, and press her lips to his.

She wants--

She wants what she should not.

Robin is wanton, sinful, aching.

Amon sleeps, unreachable.

**--end**


	3. Foolish things

**Title:** Foolish things  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating:** PG  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Karasuma  
**Word count:** 126  
**Warnings:** none.  
**Summary:** Karasuma, young and foolish.

* * *

When she was young (foolish), Karasuma's powers had been a temptation. She had thought to learn the secrets of the human heart with the touch of a hand.

When she was young (stupid), Karasuma had fallen in love. He wound his fingers in her hair, and Karsuma felt that he thought her hair too short. She let it grow. She had grabbed his hand, excited, and learned that he thought her too forward. Karasuma learned to pretend at meekness.

He had kissed her, and she felt his want.

Her Craft hadn't been enough to keep him from leaving.

When she was young (naive), Karasuma's powers had been a temptation. Karasuma has grown up since then, and knows now that not all temptations are worth giving into.

**--end**


	4. Alone

**Title:** Alone  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating:** General  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Touko  
**Word count:** 126  
**Warnings:** none.  
**Summary:** Touko, alone. (Post-series)

Plaster and fresh paint do little to erase the memory of old hurts. Touko can not set foot into her home--her first apartment, and she had been so pleased to be on her own--without imagining the bullet holes and burns marks which had marked her apartment as a killing ground.

Robin is gone, now.

Amon is gone.

Her father is gone.

There is no consolation to be found in painted and plastered walls when everything Touko has ever known is no longer hers to believe in, and everyone she has ever loved have left her to these empty rooms. Touko does not know where her father has gone, nor Amon, nor Robin--no one will tell her.

All Touko wants is the truth.

**--end**


	5. Betrayal

**Title:** Betrayal  
**Author: **Northlight  
**Rating:** PG  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Nagira and Amon  
**Word count:** 123  
**Warnings:** none.  
**Summary:** If Nagira is a traitor, so too is Amon.

* * *

Nagira is a traitor. He betrays humanity every time he helps a Witch slip through Solomon's grasp, every time he shields a Seed from the necessity of constant surveillance. He betrays Amon, by daring to forgive what Amon can not.

Nagira lives betrayal every day, and smiles, unrepentant.

Amon, too, is a traitor. Amon betrays his duty, his convictions, the promises he has made to himself and others. He should report Nagira's activities, thinks about doing so (sometimes, not half so often as he thinks he should), and never does. He never does, and never will.

Nagira is a traitor, and he is the only family Amon has left.

In the end, family is worth more than all of Amon's rage.

**--end**


	6. Deceptive

**Title: **Deceptive  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating:** General  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Amon, Robin  
**Word count:** 115  
**Warnings: **None  
**Summary:** Everything about Robin is deceptive.

* * *

There is something appealing about Robin: a charm, an innocence, a genuine affection for others. She wins them over, trying to belong, but never anything other than what she is.

Robin is slight, her hands delicate, her eyes huge and full of thoughts Amon doesn't wish to guess at. She is young, still, so very young, and Amon ruthlessly squashes every flicker of protectiveness he feels towards her.

Everything about Robin is deceptive, from her dreamer's eyes to her soft voice. Sometimes, Amon thinks that Robin would be a kind mistress to those under her spell.

He reminds himself that Robin is no child, no innocent. He must remember than Robin is a loaded gun.

**--end**


	7. First Shot

**Title:** First Shot  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating: **General  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Karasuma  
**Word count:** 101  
**Warnings:** None.  
**Summary:** Karasuma, an orbo gun, and the hunt.

* * *

Karasuma had doubted her ability to shoot another living being: even a witch, even if orbo was more humane than bullets. Her gun fit oddly within her hand, and rode awkwardly at her hip.

She feared herself to be weak.

Karasuma had hardly opened her mind when strong currents of terroragonyoh god help please please reached out and drew her under, again, and again. She arose after an eternity, gasping, and shedding her hesitation and her doubts like water droplets.

Her gun was in her hand. The witch was in her sights. Karasuma breathed, banished all thought.

And fired.

**--end**


	8. Like Burning

**Title: **Like burning  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating:** R, for sexual content.  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Amon/Robin  
**Word count:** 117  
**Warnings:** Some sexual content.  
**Summary:** Wanting Robin isn't good for Amon's mental health.

* * *

Amon had a hundred reasons to want Robin dead, and no right to desire her.

He looked at the graceful column of her neck, and thought of leaving marks against her skin. He refused to look, would not, could not, and the sight of Robin's subtle curves was burned against the inside of his eyelids. Nighttime, and Robin sleeping in the bed across from his, Amon imagined the slide of her skirt against his cock as she moved to straddle him. He left evidence of his frustration and want in the curve of his arm.

He thought that it would be easier to bear the weight of Robin's death than live with the want of her.

**--end**


	9. Where the truth lies

**Title:** Where the truth lies  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating:** General  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Karasuma  
**Word count:** 113  
**Warnings: **None  
**Summary:** Karasuma and her power.

* * *

Steel lay beneath the flesh and blood and warmth of Karasuma. Steel filled her, kept her standing, and whole, when all the feelings, all the memories that were not her own threatened to shape her into someone--something--not herself.

Karasuma's hands had been a subtle weapon, one used most often against herself. Karasuma's hands felt the shape, and weight, and texture of memories, and so she learned to keep her hands clasped behind her back, pinned. Karasuma had lived her life holding the shadows of other lives between her fingers, woven through her thoughts.

Her abilities had begun to fade.

In truth, she was glad.

(had never been so frightened).

**--end**


	10. Reality

**Title: **Reality  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating:** R, for sexual content  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Touko/Amon  
**Word count:** 131  
**Warnings:** sexual content.  
**Summary:** Touko gets her man (pre-series).

* * *

Touko felt feverish with desire: limbs shaking, skin slick, breath harsh in her throat. She tossed her head, lower lip caught between her teeth, and hand moving beneath the blanket, lower, lower. She thought of Amon, his lips on her breasts, his hair wound between her fingers.

She rubbed sticky fingers against her belly, later, still aching with the want of him.

Amon shares Touko's bed in more than her dreams, now. His hands are sure against her body, and his eyes thaw until meeting his gaze is almost bearable. He makes her gasp, and cry, and dig her nails into his back, and Amon never gives up more control than he choses to.

It isn't fair, Touko thinks, that her dream lover should make her happier than the reality.

**--end**


	11. Grownup

**Title:** (untitled)  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating: **General  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Karasuma  
**Word count:** 126  
**Warnings:** None.  
**Summary:** Clothes don't make the woman, but they can help.

It was an honour to have been offered such an important job. Karasuma had no regrets about accepting employment with the STN-J rather than taking a more traditional job. It was good, important work, but--she found herself _feeling_ her youth now as she never had before.

It was important to give the proper impression. She was a woman, now, and a person of authority. Her clothes should match her new status. With only a little regret, Karasuma had laid aside the comfortable, comforting clothes of her youth. A demure skirt and blouse hung in her closet, neatly pressed and awaiting the morning. Sensible pumps were arranged next to the door.

It was all very proper, and very _adult._

And so, Karasuma reminded herself, was she.

**--end**


	12. Naked

**Title:** Naked  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating: **General  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Karasuma  
**Word count:** 109  
**Warnings:** none.  
**Summary:** Karasuma doesn't like being naked.

Karasuma doesn't like being naked. She is not, she knows, an unattractive woman, but--

There is a scar on Karasuma's right shoulder: long, ragged, a memento left by a dying telekinetic. The skin over her left knee is discoloured, so faintly as to be barely noticeable, but the mark over her hip stands out in sharp relief.

Karasuma, at twenty, is a scarred soldier. She knows her war wounds are a badge of honour, and yet--

When Karasuma looks at her scars, she does not remember her victories. She remembers the terror and rage of men and women fighting for their freedom, their lives--and losing.

**--end**


	13. Over Tea

**Title: **Over tea  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating:** General  
**Pairings or characters involved: **Karasuma  
**Word count:** 105  
**Warnings:** none.  
**Summary:** Long, peaceful afternoons.

Karasuma's powers manifested early. As a child, she wept when her mother grieved; screamed in rage when her father returned from work, silent with frustration. She knew that her mother feared for her (was fearful of her) (couldn't tell the difference). She knew that her father looked upon her, and felt guilt, and shame.

They loved her, but their love gave Karasuma no peace.

Her grandmother was a warm presence, her Craft a balm to Karasuma's battered psyche. They spent long hours together, palm to palm, and Karasuma would never again be so happy as she was during long afternoons in grandmother's small kitchen.

**--end**


	14. Tight

**Title: ** (untitled)  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating:** General  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Robin, Nagira.  
**Word count:** 130  
**Warnings:** None.  
**Summary: **Robin gets used to her new bike messenger's uniform.

Robin had never seen any use in being ashamed of her body. She was as God had created her, and the cross she bore was a curse of spirit rather than flesh. Still, though. . .

The outfit Nagira had provided her with was quite _tight,_ Robin thought as she plucked at the fabric of her new uniform. She resisted the urge to squirm, and resolutely turned her attention towards the mirror before her. Her lips pursed: the top clung to ribs and breasts, and her shoulders looked knife-sharp, starved.

Nagira laughed, and lay a hand on Robin's shoulder. She hadn't seen him come in: how embarrassing to be caught in such vanity! Nagira simply grinned at Robin's reflection.

Don't worry, kid. You look good.

Robin ducked her head, pleased.

**--end**


	15. Soft

**Title:** Soft  
**Author:** Northlight  
**Rating:** General  
**Pairings or characters involved:** Robin, Nagira.  
**Word count:** 115  
**Warnings:** None.  
**Summary:** Nagira's coat is a thing of wonder.

Robin had looked upon awe-inspiring sights many times in her life. Nothing had captivated her quite so thoroughly as Nagira's coat, currently draped over an arm of the couch, one sleeve reaching towards Robin as in invitation.

White, furry, _fluffy,_ and Robin wanted nothing more than to bury her fingers into the folds of the coat, and to see if it was as soft as it looked. She curled her fingers, and resolutely tore her gaze away from the coat. It would not be ignored, beckoning Robin, alluring, and she continued to stare at it from the corner of her eye.

From the doorway, Nagira chuckled. Go ahead, touch it. I don't mind.

Robin blushed.

**--end**


End file.
